MACFARLANE: SYNCHRONISM IN PLANT STRUCTURES 321 



dull deep-green leaves are quite green even in mid-April of each suc- 

 ceeding year alongside other and deciduous vegetation. These ever- 

 green leaves defoliate in May or early June after the young leaves and 

 flowers have well expanded. The species moreover invariably occurs 

 only where facing sea breezes or along the edges of ocean inlets, as 

 observed along a stretch of the New Jersey coast-line from the mouth 

 of the Great Egg Harbor River to Cape May Point, and is invariably a 

 swamp-loving plant. 



Myrica carolinensis— the common Waxberry or Bayberry- — is a 

 deciduous species of much wider range and greater hardihood, which 

 drops its elliptic obovate shiny leaves by the end of November, at 

 latest, and whose bare twigs throughout the winter show only the 

 small protruding staminate catkins on one plant and the even smaller 

 pistillate buds on another. The species occurs often many miles 

 removed from the influence of ocean winds or brackish water and 

 nearly always in dry sandy soil. 



The hybrid — M. Macfarlanei — is of semi-evergreen habit. It grows 

 frequently interspersed with both parents along the area of the New 

 Jersey coast already named and doubtless will be recognized south- 

 ward to Florida. Its lanceolate leaves of rather shining aspect remain 

 green to the end of March, or only become in part brown and fall 

 during April. More extensive and exact studies made as to the 

 occasional retention of leaves on low young shoots of M. carolinensis 

 into mid-winter and the retention of the evergreen leaves on M. 

 cerifera to an even later date than the writer has indicated, may yet 

 make our knowledge much more perfect regarding this striking hybrid 

 and the possible synchrony of floral events, as well as leaf duration on 

 individuals of the parent and of the hybrid. It might be added that 

 the hybrid inhabits soil areas which are fairly intermediate between 

 the swamps of the one species and the dry sandy soil of the other. 



If we consider now germination of seeds, equally suggestive syn- 

 chronous procedure is observed. Only two, amongst many studied, 

 need be mentioned as having recently been closely examined side by 

 side with each other. The seeds of the little annual Floerkea pro- 

 serpinacoides germinated this year in- immense quantities over several 

 moist shrubby valleys on March 17. The radicle had protruded and 

 the cotyledons had become swollen on March 25, the first or trifoliate 

 leaf was uniformly mature on April 7 and the second leaf was unfolding 

 by April 11. In contrast, subterranean seeds oi Am phicarpaea monoica 

 alongside the above, were still dormant on April 11, but on April 14 

 many had simultaneously begun to germinate. 



Moreover, but in line with all of the above, the annual trans- 

 formations that occur in our woodlands in spring and throughout 



